I have seen three things with my own eyes that give me a different sense of history than most anyone else.
When you see something that is part of the real history, different from academic textbooks, it has a special impact on you. It goes to a gut feeling that is not anchored in your brain or your mind but goes to the tent poles of your world view.
The first and oldest thing that I have seen that shaped my thinking were oil paintings, portraits of Egyptians. These perfectly photographic oil portraits were done in the first century BCE. They were as perfect as any painting done in oil in 17th century Holland.
That gives you a sense that art history as we learned it is flat out wrong. The ability to make photographic images with paint is very old.
The second was a pile of objects that I saw in a storage building in Nara. Nara dates back to fifth century Japan. It is a short train trip from Kyoto.
What I saw in Nara was a pile of rectangular silk weavings about 4ft. high. Newspapers separated each weaving from one above it in order to keep them all dry.
On each weaving, all of which were gorgeous and bright, was a small piece of cotton with the name and date of the sender.
What I saw with my own eyes was a piece of woven silk roughly 3 ft.x 4 ft. sent as a gift to the newly installed Emperor of Japan in 610 CE by the ruler of Persia. Every other ruler between Persia and Japan had sent a similar silk weaving. There were many emperors of Japan over several centuries who received these silk gifts.
Does that tell you the extent of trade and commerce in the 5th and 6th centuries in Asia? Does it tell you the level of communication and government stability at the time?
The third object I saw is at the Library of Congress. It was a large two-volume book part of 41 volumes in Chinese with illustrations. This was a 15th century, 1408, encyclopedia of China. The Chinese Emperor sent out scribes to record every detail of Chinese life including drawings of all the technology, construction and transportation mechanisms of the era. It also included a census and maps.
Does this give you a sense of the level sophistication of China 600 years before the rest of the world?
I saw all of these with my own eyes.